WNPA news bureau opens

The Olympia news bureau of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association (WNPA) opened on Tuesday, Jan. 8, with four reporters ready to cover the state’s lawmakers.

Beacon Publishing is a member of the WNPA, and will publish stories by WNPA reporters that we feel are of importance to our community, with localization of stores when possible.

Look for their bylines in upcoming issues of the paper and online.

This year’s news team consists of three University of Washington journalism majors and one Washington State University graduate. They will provide coverage of the capitol through the end of the current long session, scheduled to last 105 days.

This year legislators are expected to adopt the two-year operating state budget as well as the two-year capital budget, which funds many local projects throughout the state.

Emma Scher has written for The Daily UW, The Seattle Times, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, and now joins the WNPA Olympia Bureau. Her previous experience built skills including political reporting, fact-checking, and online content creation. During Washington’s 2019 Legislative Session she is interested in covering environmental policy and issues of higher education.

She is a double major in sociology and communications with an emphasis in journalism, and hopes to attend graduate school.

Madeline Coats received a double degree is journalism and creative writing from the University of Washington. She freelances for various publications around the greater Seattle area. This last fall, Coats worked for Northeast Seattle Living Magazine and is currently helping film and interview for a documentary with UW professor and author David Shields. She is the treasurer and student liaison for the UW chapter of SPJ.

Emma Epperly attended Washington State University as a member of the honors college. She majored in multimedia journalism and French with a minor in global studies. While at WSU, she did PR for the Office of Undergraduate Education and served a term as the deputy director of communication, managing social media, for the Associated Students of WSU.

Sean Harding is a journalism and a geography major at the University of Washington, and is the current president of the UW Society of Professional Journalists. Originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, Sean left the active duty Army in 2015 to pursue higher education. Sean also serves as a mass communication noncommissioned officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.